1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an ink composition, an ink cartridge including the same, and an inkjet image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an ink composition in which a smear characteristic thereof is decreased and a storage stability thereof over a long period of time is enhanced due to an amine alcohol compound having a hexagonal ring, an ink cartridge including the same, and an inkjet image forming apparatus including the ink cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a dot size of an inkjet printer tends to be small and a printing speed of the inkjet printer tends to be high. Further, a printed image having a high quality and a high resolution is required. In order to obtain a smaller dot size, a head of the inkjet printer must have a smaller nozzle opening. However, such a smaller nozzle opening is easily clogged, and a size of inkjet droplets is influenced by a precipitate. Components of an ink composition used in the inkjet printer are known to influence the nozzle clogging. In order to prevent nozzle clogging, a humectant is usually added to the ink composition.
Further, when an ink composition printed on paper is not dried or absorbed into the paper within a required period of time due to high speed of the printer, a smear phenomenon occurs. In order to improve such a phenomenon, a method of quickly penetrating inks into paper by adding an isopropyl alcohol penetrating agent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,616), and a method of using a polymer additive as a binder (U.S. Pat. No. 6,646,024) have been proposed.
However, the penetrating agent is excessively penetrated into paper, thereby decreasing a color density (OD) of a printed image. Furthermore, the polymer additive has poor miscibility in water, thereby causing layer separation or nozzle clogging, and thus decreasing a storage stability of an ink composition including the polymer additive over a long period of time and a durability of an ink cartridge containing the ink composition.